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REV. MR. STONE'S ORATION, 



DKLIYEKED BErOEE THI 



t«e«B©BP^L ^yTM@^BTBES 



On?"K^ or- IBOSTODNT, 



JULY 4, 1854 



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ORATION 



DELIVERED HEFORE THE 



MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES 



C 1 T Y F BOS T N , 



CELEBRATION 



Irnnitq-tLoigjitji JliminrrsEni nf Jlinrririm 3iik|irniirurr, 



JULY 4, 1854. 



BY EEV. A. L. STONE 



ECOND KDITION 



BOSTON: 

S. K. WHIPPLE & CO., 100 WASHINGTON STREET. 
18 5 4. 



IB7f 



3^T'tO 



THE STRUGGLES OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 



It is natural for a traveler, pressing forward from sun 
to sun over hill and valley, to pause on the heights he 
climbs, that he may look behind him over the length of Avay 
already traversed, and before him along the Hesh reaches yet 
to be measured. It is good for the wayfarer of life to rest 
his steps on the eminences that mai"k the bomids of his 
finished years — to take both retrospect and forecast — to give 
anew his mind to thought, his heart to praise, and his hands 
to duty. It is equally natural and good for a nation in its 
swift career to power and greatness, or to whatsoever destiny, 
to linger awhile on the summits of its successive epochs of 
life — to learn wisdom from the past — to gather hope for the 
future, and to gird itself afresh for its race. 

These National Birth-days, as their joyous chimes from 
bell-tower and cannon-throat strike on our ears, are fit occa- 
sions — goodly hill-tops — on which to bring witliin one hor- 
izon the memorials of the times gone by, and the presages 
of those- to come. Each gratulant sound on this commemo- 
rative morning has its echo from " Seventy-Six " — its rever- 
berations lose themselves amid the dim defiles of ages yet to 
be. So does this day come to us both as a historian and a 
prophet. 

We shall not now linger long with this past. Its story 
is too familiar — the day itself utters it on all our hills and in 
every valley ; childhood knows it as its own household 



words. The present is too stirring and eventful — the augu- 
ries of the futiu'e too momentous. Enough of it we must 
call back to honor the dues of a just commemoration ; and 
then yield us to the mighty currents that are bearing us and 
our country's fortunes on theh rushing tideway to — unknown 
shores. 

And om* theme possesses this tAvo-fold advantage, guiding 
us up the stream in its hitherto flowing, and out along 
its distant reaches, as we sketch with hurried hand the 

STRUGGLES OF AMERICAN HiSTORY. 

The Hfe of nations, as the life of mdividual man, has its 
epochs and eras. It docs not leap at once to its prime of 
araied power. It has rather, like humanity itself, its em- 
bryo — its birth — its infancy — its cliildhood, period succeed- 
ing to period till it stands stalwart and strong in robust man- 
hood. And all past human Iristory gives melancholy com- 
pleteness to the parallel, in the decay of national life as it 
falls into the imbecilities and decrepitudes of age — then sinks 
into the common tomb of biuied empires. 

Indeed, it is a universal law, that whatsoever life has a 
beginning, must win its full development by conflict and 
struggle. And the annals of every people ofier themselves 
in evidence and illustration of this law of growth. 

The Hebrew nation had its germ in the heart of a shepherd 
dwelling in his tent on the Syrian plains. We watch the 
germ m its first transplanting, by the hand of Jacob, as he 
flies from the gi-ave of his father, a fugitive from the ven- 
geance of his elder brother. A little later, twelve men 
enshrme its imperiled fortunes, when the fierce seven years' 
famine seems its final doom. In short-lived prosperity it 
thi'ives again under the sunshine of Eg}^3tian favor, then 
sinks trampled into the dust beneath the ii'on heel of a cruel 
bondage — lifts its head once more above the refluent waves 
of the avenging Red Sea — hides from sight in the solitudes 
of the wilderness — emerges at last from its forty years' wan- 
dering in the desert, and conquers for itself, after a huncbed 



wars, a broad kingdom and a stately metropolis in the laud 
of promise. 

Young Rome, yet in its cradle, matched its infant strength 
against the warlike herdsmen that enykoned its simple for- 
tresses — then met the onset of remoter kmgs and tribes — 
Sabines and Portians — ^bent to the earth and rose again 
beneath the rushing of the Gallic tides poming down from 
the gates of the north — each encounter a struggle of life and 
death — grappled in long and doubtful strife with her great 
rival, Tyrian Carthage — challenged nation after nation to 
mortal combat, staking her very existence on each throw for 
fortune's favor, and so crowned herself at last on her seven- 
pillared throne — queen of the conquered world. 

England had her four, centuries of fluctuating warfare with 
the Legionaries of Rome — wrestled with the mighty hordes 
of the Caledonian wilds, whom she repelled by the help of 
her Saxon allies, received in turn her helpers as controlling 
elements of her national life — fainted under the pressure of 
the vast war-fleets of the Danes — then hurled them, back 
from her shores, as her white cliffs the Avaves that ever 
return only to be baffled and broken — met and reeled before 
the shock of Norman invasion, and again emiched her veins 
with foreign blood, and so struggled onAvard through revo- 
tions and wars, and regicides and long Parliaments — to the 
proudest throne among the nations — Avearing noAV that most 
royal name, "Sovereign of the Seas." 

The same history of successive struggles — the same event- 
ful annals of disasters and then more signal victories folloAv- 
ing in rapid alternation, has checkered the Hfe-story of every 
nation that has risen fi-om Aveakness to power in all the book 
of time, confessing, as we have said, in the uniformity of the 
event, the universal laAv of national groAvth. 

Our OAvn nation is no exception to this laAV of centuries, 
though the young striplmg speedily disencumbered liimself 
of the SAvaddling bands of liis babyhood — Avas early Aveaned, 
forsaking mother's milk for strong meat — despised creeping — 



shook off" all equivocal drapery — put on the distinctive cos- 
tume of his sex, and standing erect on his own feet, in early 
and ambitious youth, bent to the race, and stretched his Titan 
hmbs on the long com-sc of time, for the foremost place of 
earthly greatness. 

We hope not to be vain-glorious in reciting any of our his- 
tories, or working out our horoscope for the future. We 
have had our portrait sketched so often by foreign artists that 
came over on purpose, that Ave ought, by this time, seeing 
ourselves as others see us, to have learned humility ; and 
there w^ill be enough in oiu- field of thought this day to make 
us serious and to keep doA^ai pride. 

Somebody has called us — perhaps we did it ourselves ; if 
so, it is a name of our own invention, and we have a right 
to it ; if not, we have accepted it, and so it is ours — the 
Young Giant of the West. 

He hasn't many of the graces of the exquisite — this young 
giant — so the foreign artists have drawn him. The shirt- 
frill and the patent leather and the patent airs of the French 
dandy, he doesn't much affect. His clothes are thought not 
to set well, to be a little awkwardly made and awkwardly 
worn. But he gets up early in the morning and dresses in 
haste. He doesn't spend much time before the glass. He 
runs his fingers tlii-ough his hair instead of a comb — his only 
anxiety being to keep it out of liis eyes — and neglects the 
pomatum entu'ely. In the portrait his shoes are broad and 
thick soled, but he stands firm in them, and when he swings 
them they have momentum. His hands are lai-ge, but there's 
a gripe in them. His hat brim is naiTow, but it lets the 
light of heaven on his face. His shirt collar- is high and stiff, 
but it keeps him lookuig straight ahead after his destiny. 
His coat is short-waisted, he doesn't run to waste (waist) in 
broadcloth. The piece of apparel that clothes his nether 
Knibs stops a little too soon in its downward reach, but he is 
growing so fast. 

In short, there may be found many a more poHshed look- 



ing gentleman — fitter for ladies' presence ; but there are 
apparent in him such bone and muscle — such wiry chords 
about the loose-strung joints — such a long-armed and deep- 
chested outfit for the wrestling of earth's potentates, that the 
sight of hmi doesn't much encourage these jealous ones to 
try a fall. They may make game of him — and that's just 
what they find him — game. 

But he wasn't always a giant. He had liis OAvn cradhng. 
It was a rude nursery in which he learned to Avalk — it was 
a rough discipline that shook liim free from his leading- 
strings. 

Scarce two generations of men — and many an individual 
lifetime still wearing greenly on in the midst of us — span 
the entire length of our national existence — an added cen- 
tmy and a half will go back to our forefathers' first coming — 
and within these brief periods the germ has become the oalv, 
the fi-esh-born foster-child of Liberty has become the youth- 
fid giant. 

The first struggle of American life was against the 
untamed ivildness of Nature. When the Hebrew tribes 
emerged from the wilderness and set foot in the promised 
land, they found it, in the expressive phrase of Scriptm-e, a 
land flowing with millc and honey. The art of human 
tillage, the labors of human industry had preceded them. It 
was built up with walled towns and stately cities. Its hills 
were green with the olive — its cliffs pm-ple with the vine. 
All they had to do was to enter in and take possession. But 
our land of promise was the wdlderness still. As the keel 
of the Atlantic voyager aj)proaches now these shores, he 
gazes upon broad-armed harbors, inviting him into their 
peaceful waters as the weary sea-bird to its nest, beacon 
towers, flaming red warning in the darkness or ringing their 
chimes through the fog — great cities pushing their adven- 
turous granite, munitions of wealth and trade, far out against 
the besieging waves — forest-ghded with the masts of a 
world-wide commerce — screen heights around adorned with 



8 

fail- villas — smiling valleys retreating back among the hills, 
contmuoLis gardens — sun-Hghted streams bearing down to 
ocean ^Dorts the flow of inland wealth — ^little brooks white 
from the vexing water wheels — the smoke of tall chimneys, 
beneath whose shadows toils the dusky artificer — the lifted 
spires of Christian temples — all heralding to that voyager a 
land of peace and plenty, and giving sign of generous and 
hospitable Avelcome. How different this pictiu-e from that 
which frowned before the resolute eyes that fu-st measured 
the New England coast ! Hills robed in forest terrors sloped 
backwai-d from the water's margin — up the silent valleys 
there were no tracks save those of savage beasts or savage 
men — over what hidden perils the harbor tides ebbed and 
flowed they had yet to learn — whither the valley streains led, 
in their upward course to theh fountahis, none could tell 
them — the futiu-e harvest plains grew the oak hai'vests of 
slow centuries. No houses were built for them — matron 
and maiden, age and infancy, must shelter themselves in tents 
or beneath evergreen boughs, from winter's rigors. Nature, 
in her sternest panoply, seemed thus to defy our fathers to 
the struggle. Sheathed in glittering snows, like a vu-gin 
warrior in mail, she seemed to expect by her very aspect, to 
decide the contest. She gathered up the awe of her grand 
mysterious solitudes, to lay upon their spirits. She blew 
upon them with the chill of her December winds, and sought 
to pierce theii' heart with her spear of ice. 

But they were no fliint-hearted champions that had come 
over to measure their prowess with her savage wildness. 
The land was to be possessed. Therefore it was to be 
explored, subdued, and made to pay tribute. Upon it were 
to rise cities and villages, and roll the yellow harvest seas. 
They had strong arms and stout hearts, and the conflict was 
joined. The first strokes fell — they rang thi-ough the wood- 
land depths, and then- echoes swept over the sullen waves. 
The foremost forest ranks bowed to the invasion. Again the 
axe advanced, and again the serried lines of resistance gave 



way. Still was the onset strengthened by new forces, and 
still the woodland veterans, with all their plumed honors, 
went down before them. And so the battle-front has rolled 
on, and so the sturdy giants of the forest and the wild have 
retreated before it. It has been a continuous conflict, and 
the end is not yet — but victory has always declared for the 
invader. The axe — the fire — the plough — the spade — those 
weapons of assault, cannot be withstood. The noise of the 
sylvan war is now quite remote. It has rolled backwaixl 
on the Alleghanies — it has swept northward and eastward 
into the fastnesses of our mountain ranges and the old woods 
of Maine — it has rushed across the prairies and left them broad 
oceans of rolhng harvest wealth — faint and far we hear the 
sturdy strokes, that tell where the van marches, coming back 
to our ears from the distant valley slopes that rise from the 
Father of waters — toward the heights that look down upon 
Pacific Seas. In the track of this bloodless conquest, shoots 
the green blade of the corn, rise the walls of cheerful and 
busy hamlets, growing soon to emulous cities, where wealth 
builds and taste and refinement adorn — and bloom and smile 
every where the gai'dens of graceful and happy homes. 

As fast as new territories are opened to these restless 
pioneer feet their ranks are again m motion, and the struggle 
again renewed, and fresh victories won. The conquering 
columns are pouring now into those vast regions, whose 
names are spoken sadly among us as trophies of the triumph- 
ant encroachments of the Slave Despotism on our soil. But 
we do not fear. These axe-armed cohorts of freemen from 
the East and North and West, carrying fire and smoke before 
them — s^anbols not of destruction, but of civihzation — of 
the hearthstones of domestic life, and the glowing furnaces 
of the arts — forerunners of harvests and orchards — and the 
manifold comforts of a free and established population, are 
silently and swiftly taking possession of the disputed realm 
in the name of humanity and liberty. 

Such has been and is the first struggle of American life 
2 



10 

and history, — the inilmt Hercules matching himself in his 
cradle with the earth-born forces of savage nature ! It is not 
yet consummated — but the whole prestige of the past is with 
the toiling and adventurous arms that are making this once 
waste and howling wilderness to blossom as the rose. We 
believe we may take this opening chapter as an augury for 
all the history, for other struggles yet to be chronicled, for 
those unwritten leaves sealed up for us yet, against the open- 
ing of which so many begin to tremble. 



with it for many a tragic year of our story, came our struggle 
with savage men — the second struggle of American history, 
in which the infancy of the young giant may be said to have 
cut its teeth. The vast deserts of the North American Con- 
tinent, unlike the densely peopled shores of South America, 
Avhich the Spaniards deluged in blood, had really and prop- 
erly no personal or national proprietors. Over them there 
roamed the scattered tribes of the aboriginal savages, whose 
only occupancy of the soil was the privilege of coursing its 
forest ranges, in the hunt and on the war-path, and tilling 
their patches of Indian corn. They were for the most part 
restless nomads, buikhng and deserting again, as the forest 
game abounded or failed them, their temporary villages of 
huts, and leaving behind them for whatsoever successor, the 
soil they had traversed and wrought for a season, but never 
truly appropriated. On the Plymouth coast, the hand of 
Providence itself had prejDared room for the New England 
Fathers. A wasting mortaHty, the ravages of some unknown 
pestilence, had swept this rude but sacred portal of the con- 
tinent free for the entrance of the Pilgrims. Doubtless 
there have been, in the progress and triumph of a European 
civilization on this continent, many acts of injustice and cru- 
elty committed by white men upon theu- red bi-ethi'en of the 
forest. But our own early history was not so stained. The 
memorable treaty, formed by our forefathers with the great 



11 

sachem of the Wampanoags, the peace-loving Massasoit, 
continued inviolate for fifty years. But at last here also, the 
jealous fears of the red man, the passions of ambitious cliiefs, 
and, with not a few leading spirits, the instinct of self- 
preservation kindled the flames of a fierce and exterminating 
warfare. Its storms broke upon the infant settlements just 
straggling into life amid vicissitudes of fomine and sickness, 
and thenceforth it seemed that the hatchet was never more 
to be buried, save Avith the arm that wielded it. That period 
has receded among our antiquities as a people ; but the 
scenes it recalls are the most thrilling and terrible in the 
annals of nations. 

Here, too, a sovereign Providence Avas working to insure 
to the chosen people, the land kept in reserve for their com- 
ing, through silent centuries. Not for the barbarian was 
this noble continent heaved up from the retuing waters. 
No race of wild hunters, with a navy of bark canoes, Avere 
to evoke the destiny of such a magnificent Avorld. This 
sweep of ocean coast, deep-serrated with ports and harbors — 
prophetic of a thousand keels of commerce — these broad 
inland seas and long reaches of navigable rivers, opening 
the whole vast interior to the white-wmged messengers of 
trade — the chambered mineral wealth, pushing its dark gal- 
leries beneath all the hills — that basin of the central valley, 
the most splendid theatre for the marvels of human industry 
on God's earth — these Avere not, in the designs of ProA'i- 
dence, the heritage of savage tribes, whose only quest, as 
they tracked this superb domain with wood-paths, Avas the 
wild deer and the thundering troops of the buffalo. So the 
victory was given again to the European, and the red man 
has melted away before the long rolling Avave of civilization. 
"We heai- still from our far frontiers, the crack of his rifle 
and the whoop of his charge, as he rallies here and there on 
his sullen retreat. But the strife is nearly spent. Let us 
hope that at least and at last, a peaceful evening may close 
the historic day of a doomed and dying race. 



12 

III. The third struggle of American life is that whose 
memories cluster thickest and greenest around us tliis day. 
We may call it the effort of the boy-giant to stand upon his 
feet, and go alone. The bitterness of this strife, was not in 
the mating of peaceful settlers, untaught in ai'ms, against 
the trained armies of Eiu'opean battle-fields, not the poverty 
of the colonists in the resources and munitions of war as 
measured with the first power of the civilized world ; not 
that wretched destitution under which our heroic armies 
trailed their bare-footed and bleeding marches across wintry 
snows, and over flinty roads — not the slaughter that crim- 
soned yonder height, whose gray shaft catches and keeps the 
first and last beams of coming and parting day — nor the 
arming of neighbor against neighbor, blending the horrors 
of foreign and civil war — nor the waste of noble life in all 
the length of the conflict. It was rather in the distressful 
and outraged sentiments of the heart. It was in the sad 
necessities that arrayed the Spirit of Liberty against the Spirit 
of Loyalty — that forced our Fathers, in violence to all their 
filial love and reverence for the mother-land — into so unnat- 
ural a strife. In those days there was no other word for 
home, but England. Stronger than the recollection of all 
early wrongs, of spiiitual oppression and persecution, was 
this sacred tie that bound them to the place of then- birth. 
England's pleasant soil, England's renown, England's his- 
toiy, were theirs. There rested their ancestral dust. There 
dwelt still, kinsman and friend. This was the deepest pain — 
the sorest travail of all the contest, to aim the hand against 
the tender loyalty of the heart. There was no instinct of 
treason -with those defenders of sacred rights. They were 
no rebels to just authority, usurping crowns, and clutching 
sceptres in the lust of power. They were earnest freemen 
seeking at first, and for long, redi-ess, not revolution. And 
when the conviction gathered upon them, that there was no 
peace or secm*ity for them or the hallowed prerogatives they 
stood for, but in Independence — theii- first, saddest and 



13 

yet noblest victory was over themselves. And keeping down 
their own insurgent hearts with the hon nerve of their great 
purpose, as great in this inwai-d struggle as in its prophetic 
outlook over the futiu-e, they lifted the flag of then- solemn 
and daring ventui-e, and bore it on to triumph. And as we 
sit beneath its folds, this day, the thunders of a jubilant 
nation rocking the continent aroimd us, we have to remem- 
ber not more the dauntless valor of oiu- sires of the Kevolu- 
tion, than that suffering self-conquest, after which no other 
field was terrible, no other victory memorable. But Ave must 
not Imger even here. This struggle and its issue only pre- 
pared the way for the next. 

IV. The struggle of divers and clasliing elements to 
frame themselves into forms of Civil Government. Our 
giant — now a stripling in the impetuous days of youth, 
wrestling "with his own temper and passions for the sceptre 
of self-control. This is a history less often recited. Its 
manifold and imminent hazards are not popularly known, or 
if known, not remembered. Each school-boy can tell us of 
Lexington and Concord, of Trenton and Monmouth, of 
Princeton and Guilford, and Yorktown ; but the fields where 
mind struggled with mind — the scenes in which the builders 
wrought together to lift the stately structure of our free 
Institutions, toilmg like the Jews in the time of Nehemiah, 
when " every one with one of his hands wrought in the 
work, and with the other held a weapon " — these are setthng 
into obHvion. The names of those that di-ew the sword and 
shouted battle-cries, are handed down in song and story ; 
and they who wielded the pen and lifted the voice of patriot 
oratory in that later and more masterful strife, ai-e left almost 
unlaureled. But it is scarcely possible for u.s, in tliis 
crowded hour, and under the pressui-e of what remams to 
be said of a more present interest, to give even a single page 
from those stu-ring records. 

The generation that stood together on these shores in the 



14 

solemn pause that succeeded the revolutionary struggle, and 
looking one another in the face, asked how shall ^ve he gov- 
erned, or rather how shall we govern ourselves, were of 
varied and heterogeneous elements. They had come from the 
fixed and formal methods of social and political life in the 
Old AVorld — each with a physiognomy of his own, sharply 
cut. They had come each with his own purpose and aim. 
Some of them had been restless and discontented spirits at 
home, and flocked hither from love of change or ambition of 
fresh intrigues. Some were seekers for mines of gold. 
Some were possessed of lofty conceptions of a new and fairer 
order of social institutions, than any the world had seen ; 
and hoped to realize in the free distant wilderness, their pure 
ideals. And others, again, brought only the sturdy outfit of 
the peasant-laborer, and a scheme of life whose widest hori- 
zon was limited to the improvement of their physical com- 
forts. There were men of Patrician rank, also, who were 
deep-dyed in aristocratic predilections, and hoped to mark 
out of the unclaimed riches of the new continent, more mag- 
nificent manors than had ever graced the family name. All 
these, by their common experience of dangers, their united 
efforts for deliverance, and the common necessities of the 
new, fresh hfe that had the same law of personal effort for 
all — brought into a condition of social equahty, were to be 
consolidated into a government whose equal pressure should 
rest on all alike — whose beneficent care conserve without 
partiality the interests of all. The earliest confederacy, 
created by the exigencies of the war, and equal to those 
exigencies alone, calmly sui'veying itself when the war was 
ended, clearly perceivmg its inadequacy to the neAv cai'eer 
on which the nation was launched, and ingenuous in its con- 
fession, nobly and wisely threw back the reins upon the neck 
of the people. The process of reconstructing a Federal 
Government on a basis that should be permanent, was most 
difficult and delicate. Fortunately it was committed to the 
hands of men as able, faithful and pure as any in our history. 



15 

James Madison Had a seat in that Convention ; Alexander 
Hamilton was there, — and with them, the highest and most 
beloved name in the land — Washington. With such master 
builders, the majestic flibric of the Constitution rose. It was 
founded on the principle of the sovereignty of the people — 
a principle not held abstractly and sentimentally, but boldly 
applied to all departments of State — all the functions of Gov- 
ernment. Its grand and nearest corollary, the intervention 
of the people in public affairs, the Constitution recognized 
and established as the supreme law of the land. So was 
there constructed a central and confederate Government, 
whose administration, on the contrary, was general and uni- 
versal. Of course, there must needs be in any such central- 
ization, a seeming infringement ujjon the Independence of 
the States — a seeming curtailment of popular rights — an 
apparent tendency to aristocratic, in distinction fram demo- 
cratic forms of national life. It was impossible, but that 
there should thus be excited jealousy of the federal power. 
In a country where every man boasted himself his own 
master, every village enacted its own local ordinances, each 
several State clung to its own absolute sovereignty in all its 
internal affairs, it was not without an effort that the popular 
mind could be brought to acknowledge a distant centralized 
supremacy, though the creature of itself There was a 
necessity of Union, but a chead of it — a suspicion of it — 
a war of poj)ular feeling against it. There were boding 
prophecies as to the ultimate limits of tliis delegated au- 
thority, whereto it might grow — ^what colossal shadows it 
might fling over the land. Intriguing politicians were not 
wanting to those days, who were ready for the price of per- 
sonal aggrandizement, to inflame the popular cHscontent, and 
to stigmatize every Federalist as an enemy to the liberties of 
the people. The strongest powers, the most prodigious 
efforts, the purest patriotism of the great leaders of the 
national fortunes, were demanded, to root the new govern- 
ment in the affections and confidence of the people. Hap- 



]6 

pily these influences, allied to the personal popularity of the 
idolized and immortal Father of his Country, were potent 
enough to meet the crisis and control the issue; and the 
Federal Government became a fact and a life. The struggle 
passed by — ^the storm disappeared from the sky — and though 
its low mutterings were still heard for a time, the serenity 
of the Heavens was not again seriously disturbed. For 
nearly seventy years that contest has been over. No gov- 
ernment on earth is more stable. " Treason is a forgotten 
crime." The fountains of popular contentment have 
never been broken up. The yoke sits easy on every neck. 
Neither individuals nor classes have chafed beneath its press- 
ure. Peace, " with her olives crowned," sits smiling on all 
our hills. Around the National Capitol there watch no 
guards, save the ■\\^arm encircling hearts of our free and 
happy millions. For all purposes of national action, the 
American peoj^le is a consolidated unit, resjDectecl and hon- 
ored among the powers of earth. In all matters of private 
and social concern, the will of the people is its own imme- 
diate and ahnost unrestricted law. 

V. But there is yet another struggle upon us, all whose 
history is sadder, all whose portents are darker, and out of 
which there has dawned hitherto no day of deliverance, 
AVe are indeed now in the very throe and travail of it. It 
is the gangrene on the limbs of the giant, climbing with 
dai-k mortal omens toward the seat of life. It has trailed its 
humbling and tragic story, its pathway of shame, tlii-ough 
all these years of our growing greatness. It has dimmed 
before the gaze of mankind our star of liberty and promise. 
It has sullied all our just renown. It has crippled our 
Christianity — it has intensely tried our patriotism — it has 
denied the principles for which we have done and suf- 
fered most. At times it has seemed to expire, and men 
would gather jubilant and gratulant to inm'n its ashes. And 
then some breath of the never quiet atmosphere of contro- 



17 

versy would blow its embers again to fiercer flames. It has 
had its campaigns, and then its holloM^ truces, broken by the 
shocks of deadlier conflict. 

The struggle antedates the day we are celebrating. Its 
earliest scenes are back m the old colonial times. Our 
Fathers, then acting in concert, afflicted with a common con- 
science of the evil, plead against it with the distant royalty 
to which they held allegiance. They declared in that mem- 
orable address to their Icing, that in their conviction it was 
impossible " for men," — these are their words — " impos- 
sible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the 
divine Author of om- existence intended a part of the human 
race to hold an absolute property in others." And in a 
mournful and touching sentence they add — " We camiot 
endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding genera- 
tions to the wretchedness that inevitably awaits them, if Ave 
entail hereditary bondage upon them." 

But their plea for royal interposition was haughtilv and 
even arrogantly rejected. And the mahgn institution thus 
fostered by English protection, gathered to itself fresh 
vitality. 

The next crisis of the struggle Avas on the floor of the old 
National Congress — at the very threshold of our national 
existence, in the memorable year of 1787. The original 
Atlantic States, bounded eastAvardly by the Ocean shore, and 
and on the north and south by fixed and declared lines of 
latitude, extended Avestwardly through the vast hidden inte- 
rior to the banks of the Mississippi. The great and poAverful 
State of Virginia setting the example and taking the lead, 
and the other States Avhose proprietorship ran parallel Avith 
its oAvn, through the breadth of the Avestern Avilderness, 
foUoAving its pattern of munificence, the Avhole unmeasured 
and unknown NorthAvest, beyond the Avaters of the Ohio, 
was ceded to the United States represented by the Continen- 
tal Congress. That Congress accepted the perilous trust. 
Here was territory — to be governed — to be legislated for — 
3 



18 

out of wliicli by-and-by, noAv States with institutions, man- 
ners and laAvs of their own, were to come knocking at the 
door of the Union. Two kinds of labor ^-ere in vogue, and 
in rivahy, throughout the existing confederacy — free labor 
and slave labor. Which should succeed to this magnificent 
heritage ? And the conflict was joined ; for tlu-ee years it 
rocked the floor of that Congress, and shook the ill-compacted 
elements of the confederacy almost to chssolution. It was 
raging fiercely when the Convention sat to frame the Federal 
Constitution. Suddenly there was a hush. Out of the storm 
was born a calm. The great Pacificator, that which said to 
the tempest, " Peace, he still " — Avas the famed " Ordinance 
of '87." By this, the whole chsputed territory Avas forever 
consecrated to freedom. The price of this victory for 
humanity and right, was the obligation imposed upon the 
new States, that should some day arise out of that territory, 
to permit tiie reclamation of fugitives from bondage. But 
how confidently it w\as hoped, that when that day should 
arrive, not a slave should walk our soil, either in labor or in 
flight, and how entirely tliis expectation was acquiesced in by 
the most strenuous supporters of the institution, all the voices 
of that time unite to witness. So that when the Convention 
whose wheels 'of progress had been blocked by the same 
barrier against which the Congress had halted, and availing 
itself of the same method of union and harmony, incorpo- 
rated in the rising Constitution the same formal, but as it 
seemed almost idle concession, and added to that in marked 
inconsistency with the idea and legal definition of slavery, a 
basis of representation for persons held in bondage — it would 
not consent that that immortal instrument should be defiled 
by the name of slave, or by any language that should describe 
and define a system of human chattelization. That august, 
fundamental law was fr-amed (we claim it before Heaven) for 
a race of fr'eemen — to be the pallachum of free institutions ; 
and not to carry into the histories of free times, any memo- 
rial or relic of the age of barbarism. To make sure of this 



19 

near and happy future — to set up a visible bound beyond 
which slavery should not pass — it was faither ordained that 
at the end of twenty years. Congress might prohibit the 
importation of slaves. Thus was the case of slavery, by 
a process of legislation that carried the consent of all minds, 
made hopeless. It was forever shut out of all the territory 
over which floated the national flag. It Avas taxed by Con- 
gress to bear the common burdens of the Government. It 
was dishonored by the Constitution that refused in the pride 
of its purity, and the consciousness of its own enduring 
career, to pollute its lips by one syllable that should recognize 
its existence, and perpetuate its memory. The precedent 
was established, that no national sanction should ever accredit 
its claims to sufferance and succor. There was nowhere 
within the hmits of the confederacy, an mch of new soil con- 
ceded to it, for growth and expansion. Just before it was a 
fixed and absolute line of time, which no subsidies for its fail- 
ing strength could cross. It was hemmed around with this 
inexorable cordon of law, and shut up within its own domain 
to suffocate and die. The friends of humanity rejoiced — 
those involved in the system were not dissatisfied ; the patriot 
was full of courage and hope, and all looked on together to 
see in its time the coming and passing of the mortal pang. 
So lingered and waited the issue. But other elements 
were to enter into the strife, and shape its coming devel- 
opments. 

Early in the present century, the immense tract of coun- 
try lying west of the IMississippi, and extending to the 
British possessions on the north, and westward without hmit, 
known by its French designation of Louisiana, was ceded by 
France to the United States, for the sum of fifteen millions 
of dollars. In some parts of this territory, slavery speedily 
gained a foothold, under the provisions of our treaty with 
France. The State of Louisiana was admitted into the 
Union in 1812, without any restriction as to slavery, the 
system having already taken possession of her soil, and 



20 

shaped the forms of her social life. Six years later, INIis- 
somi sought to join herself to the sisterhood of sovereign 
States. " Yes," said the representatives of freedom, " if 
you will come in undefiled by that foul stain of bondage." 
" She shall come in without that restriction," said the repre- 
sentatives of slavedom. And again, and with all the old 
fierceness, the battle raged. For two years the smoke of the 
conflict himg over the land, and all hearts beat tumultuously 
with its hopes and its fears. At last the battle-clouds lifted, 
and the world looked to see on which standard victory had 
perched. The two hosts were beheld mingling together in 
friendly interchanges around a double-faced monument, on 
the one side or the other of wliich each read the inscription 
of its own victory. Missouri was admitted with its slaves. 
But the entire remainder of the debateable land lying north 
of a certain parallel of latitude, with all its wealth of future 
States, was again by solemn treaty and compact forever set 
apart and dedicated to freedom. The temple of Janus was 
closed again. The sea went down. Agitation was laid to 
rest. The country had not yet given its full sanction to 
slavery. It tolerated it '\\'here it had made itself at home. 
It recognized the rights of slave property, where such rights, 
under local laws or usages, had already accrued ; but it still 
dishonored the system by its interdicts. It forbade it to set its 
blighting hoof where yet it had not trodden. It held before 
the Commonwealths, then scarce in embryo, that were yet to 
be in those broad ranges it guarded, the aegis of the national 
protection, and so proclaimed slavery a foe to human pro- 
gress, and to the strength and wealth of States. But for 
that sacred covenant, ]\Iissouri could never have entered 
beneath tire portal of the Union. But for the toleration, not 
sanction, accorded to her local institutions, both she and her 
sponsors would perhaps have withdi'awn by open and positive 
rupture from the nationality of the States. We may wish 
our Fathers had met the naked issue there. We may tliink 
the sacrifice they yielded for the sake of flimily peace, to 



21 

avert the horrors of threatened civil strife — too great and 
precious a sacrifice, for either the prize or the peril. But in 
theu' Yiew, though the act was a treason against the holiest 
principles of our free institutions, and the noblest struggles 
of our history, though it was a step baclcAvard against the 
hope, and faith, and pm-pose of the Forefathers, there was 
still in it a sort of consistency that to them made out its 
defence. The basis on wliich the States were confederated, 
was that local institutions should remain, that the Federal 
Government, in its legislation and in its administration, 
should not interfere with the internal affairs of the States, in 
aught beyond what its own general purposes made impera- 
tive. The new applicant for the federal alliance was already 
under the local law of slavery, and our Fathers, feeling 
themselves to be without power or authority to remove the 
evil where it akeady existed, without their responsibility, 
gave hesitating and reluctant consent to this new comer, with 
the plague in her bosom, to enter the privileged household 
of the Union ; at the same time relieving and comforting 
their hearts, by asserting in a most solemn ordinance for all 
the rest of that broad territory, thenceforth and forever, an 
inviolable law of freedom. This is that sacred parchment, 
.laid up in the national archives, and venerable beyond the 
tabernacle relics to the old Hebrew, upon which the slave 
power has just now laid its sacrilegious hand, ruthlessly torn 
it asunder, and scattered its fragments to the four winds. 
But ere this last historic issue, so foully lost to liberty was 
joined, there was yet another intervening, that helj)ed to 
swell and accelerate the fatal drift of the national life toward 
the degeneracy of the times upon which we are fallen. Upon 
this scene of the long continued and ever renewed struggle, 
it is not necessary to dwell. The confused and strange 
elements of that series of acts, bearing date at the high noon 
of tliis latest century of light and progress, and marking, we 
may justly fear, the hour when the sun of oiu- national glory 
passed its meridian — contended for by a statesmanship and 



22 

oratory peerless in our annals, and wliicli had been, np to 
that sad crisis, the clearest utterance of our northern spirit 
and life, were bundled and bound together, and labelled, by- 
eminence, " THE Compromise measures — the finality of 
THE Slavery agitation." They gave us one free State, 
on the golden shore of the Pacific ; they outlawed the slave 
mart from beneath the shadow of the capitol; but they 
opened two extensive territories to the blighting foot of the 
great curse to tread at will. They breathed the breath of 
life into the diowsy, effete old ordinance of the reclamation 
of fugitives — declared in new and most offensive terms, om- 
northern homes, henceforth a hunting ground for flying 
bondsmen, over which whether the scent lay fresh or cold, 
the blood hounds might course their prey — trampled on the 
inalienable right of trial by jury — offered a bounty for each 
fettered and doomed victim, and cast more gaUing shackles 
upon all oiu instincts of humanity. 

And this was to be the end of strife. This was the grave 
of dissension. This finality was to beat our swords into 
ploughshares, our spears into pruning hooks — and furl all 
banners of battle. Henceforth we were to dwell together as 
brothers, under the spreading olive of peace. 

And then like a thunderbolt from a clear sky was launched 
this double-dyed perfidy of the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise. The encncling and protecting league that guarded 
that vast central West, sloping up toward the base of the 
Eocky Mountains, shriveled beneath that falhng bolt. The 
sacred barrier all hands had joined to raise, before which all 
voices had united to say to the dark, on-coming tide of 
slavery, — " Thus far, but no fai'ther ; here shall thy proud 
waves be stayed" — went clown at the springing of that 
sudden mine. And forward again the long-baffled surges 
leapt with flashing feet. And there was no sharp and nar- 
row crisis upon us — no abyss of national nun, yawning 
before us, from which this dreadful alternative was the only 
deliverance. In the very wantonness and bravado of reck- 



23 

less, faithless power, this new encroachment of slavery shook 
its insults in the cahn face of the North. 

Here then at last is the beginning of the end — here the 
elements of the protracted strife, so long fettered in embar- 
rassing combinations, tied up in complicated alliances— yoked 
and bound in covenants and pledges, separate themselves and 
stand fronting one another for the death-grapple. Let the 
grapple come. We bare our breasts for it. The issue is 
clear at length. It is not Federal against State rights now ; 
it is not higher law against lower ; it is not principle against 
compromise; — it is liberty versus slavery. Slavery has 
drawn the sword and cast away the scabbard. Slavery, for- 
sakmg all her shifts and policies, proclaims Avar to the hilt. 
She asks no longer partitions and divisions. She reaches 
forth for the whole. She says there shall be no interdict out 
against her. She will be free to go where she will with her 
own, the Union over. It shall be no longer, "Freedom 
national and Slavery sectional ;" nor yet Freedom sectional 
and Slavery sectional ; nor yet again. Freedom sectional and 
Slavery national, but Slavery universal. Any man who can- 
not see that this is the aim, I do not say of the South, but 
of the men who have assumed the leading of her destinies, 
is blind to the plainest signs of the times. 

The " calm face of the North " has been quite patient 
under the controversy — it may have worn an aspect of too 
much forbearance ; it has sometimes gathered to frowns and 
spoken stern M-ords, but the look of calmness, the words of 
peace, have been its prevailing aspect and dialect. That 
aspect changes now. The calmness is there, but very reso- 
lute. The eye is kindling with final purpose. The lips are 
compressed with iron will. The determinate battle is offered 
us ; we are ready — readier now than a few weeks ago. 

There was a little local experiment tried on us of the old 
Bay State — a sort of appendix to the Nebraska Kansas Bill, 
to test the mercury hereabout. A fellow man, once a chat- 
tel, but by the law of nature and the law of God free, and 



24 

dwelling among us here in his freetlom, — by the help of a 
trick and a lie, Avas seized, in our own streets, guarded within 
chains and granite walls and armed men — tried under the 
special forms of law for such case made and provided — 
adjudged to bondage, delivered up, carried off. It was a 
sad experiment, and something perilous — not encouraging to 
another like it. Our pulses were not quiet in those days. 
They beat high and strong — with some rash spirits they were 
quite uncontrollable. It was not a pleasant sight to look 
iqron our own court of justice converted mto a slave prison, 
fenced oft' from our approaches by hnked steel — and garri- 
soned as by alien and hostile troops. It was not pleasant for 
ou.r peaceable and law-abiding citizens — bankers, merchants, 
artisans, operatives, to find their own places of business bar- 
ricaded against them — to be crowded and shouldered, and 
trodden on by our own citizen soldiery, and the hirelings of 
a remote despotism enforcing its cruel edicts at our doors. 
It was not pleasant to know that any increased commotion, 
however stirred, might bring the hail of iron bullets rattling 
against our windows, and the charge of horsemen trampling 
down our kinsmen and neighbors. Least of all was it pleas- 
ant to reflect that all this was to be endui-ed, as a taunt from 
Slavery — a tribute to its strengthened sceptre — the cost of 
smiting with rude hands, here where her cradle w^as, the 
matron form of liberty. 

By a singular I'rovidcnce, it fell on the week when Chris- 
tian churches and Christian ministers Avere gathered here to 
celebrate the triumphs of our gospel of peace and good will 
at home and abroad, that this repulsive and audacious exhi- 
bition of injustice and inhumanity confronted their jubilee of 
light and love ; and the strong-chorded beat of the heart of 
this metropolis was thus sent out in li%'ing arteries through 
the New England Christendom. 

Once more, then, the federal law, in its current interpre- 
tation — the law that conserves Slavery — that gives back to its 



25 

broken links northwiu-d — has triumphed. Anthony Burns 
is a man no more, but a chattel again. But it may be found 
that that trimiiph was too dearly purchased — that that stretch 
of om- endurance unto agony, is the last stage Avliere endur- 
ance has its final limit — that tliis perilous play upon our tor- 
tured sensibilities, this determined crushing of our deepest 
and holiest convictions, may be tried once too often. It may 
be found that this struggle of our whole national lifetune has 
worn on to its ultimate phase — ^that these recent events, 
illustratmg the tendencies of yeai-s, and fulfilling the prophe- 
cies of all prescient mmds, have made the issue now close 
and inevitable. 

I think we are ready, Avith great solemnity, each to take 
upon his lips words out of the Sacred Book. " My heai't is 
fixed ; oh God, my heart is fixed." 

The day of compromises is past. That broken public 
faith has shattered all compromises. ISIen will trust in them, 
consent to them no more. And this, not we fear because of 
an increasing tenderness in the public conscience, but because 
considered as pledges binding to its contracts the perfidious 
slave power, they are seen to be powerless as ropes of sand. 
And the men who have strained then- conscience to the very 
utmost tension, and silenced all the protests of their nature, 
for the sake of peace and in loyalty to the Union — are those 
whose wounds are deepest. They have gone farthest in 
concessions to the South — ^in the spirit of forbearance and 
the hope of harmony, and this is their reward. Like the 
Alpine eagle slain by an arrow feathered from its own 
pinion, they have been pierced tluough then- own generous 
but mistaken policy. There will be no more compromises ! 

There will be henceforth a united front for Liberty. We 
of the North are supphed by this latest outrage with that 
which has been so long the chief element of strength with 
the South. A pole-star of hope and efibrt, a one idea that 
shall crystalhze about it as a central law all political move- 
ment and action. 
4 



26 

There will l)c, let us liojie, a disruption of all old party 
ties. The gathering cries of old political strifes — the battle- 
shout of clansmen following some idolized leader — let them 
die out. Let the very name of party be sunk in this sacred 
league of freemen. Partisan issues may well wait awhile 
till this grander, more vital problem of our public life has 
found its solution. 

This new array will not necessarily be sectional. We will 
not have the banners read, " The North against the South.^^ 
Good men and true from every portion of oiu- land, will be 
found banded together in this holy warfare. The device on 
this new oriflamme shall be our own soaring eagle bearing in 
his talons broken fetters, and the inscription, " Freedom 
against Despotism.'''' 

It is a memorable thing that this new step of progress is 
only after the flight of three-fouiths of a century, a return 
to the spirit of the fathers. Alas, that an onward career 
of prosperity like ours, should have been as swiftly and 
surely a backward career in the morals of this great debate. 
" Slavery ivVl soon die,'''' they thought and said ; and the old 
thirteen States twined their arms together like a band of 
virgin sisters. " Slavery will soon die," and they framed 
the Constitution to meet that present exigency, and to ignore 
forever its memory. " Slavery will soon die," and they made 
the importation of slaves piracy on the high seas. Penitently 
and reverently we must tread our way back to the moral 
eminences where they stood, and changing that syllable of 
expectation to one of bold and determined purpose, say, here 
and now, after so long a time, " Slavery must die." 

There will come a day of reckoning with politicians. 
They have had oiu* " honor " in their keeping, and betrayed 
the trust. They have made for us corrupt bar-gains, and 
repudiated them when they pleased. They have truly 
represented neither North nor South. They have dishonored 
the South, by branding her with the stigma of covenant- 
breaking. They have, in the very stress and strain of the 



27 

high debate, spoken soft and timid Avords for us, when their 
tongues should have sounded indignant thunders. We must 
deal with pohticians — we must create a new race of them, 
with the northern back-bone bracing them to an upright and 
fearless manhood. Thank God we hear at last a true tone, 
where at least one fearless champion keeps the whole snai-ling 
litter at bay. 

We must yield no more territory to the insatiable spirit of 
slavery propagandism. Not another parjticle of freedom's 
sacred dust, ivhatever, I know what I say, it is a broad word, 
and has a terrible significance — whatever be the alternative. 
Into that imperiled West, from which every holy guard for 
fi-eedoni is withdra^^n, we must pour the living streams of 
freemen. Let it flow, our best New England blood to 
enrich and consecrate that soil — let them go, our sons and 
daughters carrying tliither good destinies with them. The 
race-course is free to us — yonder vesper star the prize, let 
us see if Freedom cannot win the race. 

We must admit on no pretence another slave State. Are 
not all old pledges dead and buried ? We do put the 
national imprimatur upon the system, when we add one of 
those malign stars to the glorious constellation. 

We must stand for the repeal of that harsh law that goes 
tramphng through the sacred privacies of our homes, unearth- 
ing the hidden, trembling fugitive, and remanding him 
to chains. 

Till that hour strikes, we must lend that barbarous decree 
no help or countenance. If there be penalties for such 
recusancy, let them lay their heaviest exactions on our heads. 
Sooner than join om- aid to the savage hunt, to lay the flying 
bondman by the heels, let the avengers of such law drag us 
to fetters. Sweeter and brighter than the beauty of day 
shall be the gloom of dungeons in such a martyrdom — richer 
poverty under such proscription and confiscation, than wealth 
and station the price of dishonor. 

This is no plea for armed resistance. Violence and blood- 



28 

shed Avin no laurels for principle. Oh, my fellow citizens, 
let us remember that our true love for humanity, our noble 
indignation at wrong — our quenchless loyalty to right, are all 
mixed and sullied with the stains of cartlilier passions, when 
we join to them the clenched hand, the gnashing teeth, and 
the gleaming blades of popular insurrection. 

This may we do, and keep both clean hands and an honest 
conscience — withdraw, on every hand, each private citizen — 
each public functionary — each humblest servitor of justice, 
from the processes of that legal kidnapping, and let them 
thrive as they may, without us. One such bright example, 
of laying down office that cannot be administered with honor, 
is worth for the cause of freedom a hundred orations. We 
shall serve our cause best, keep its dignity and pmity most 
inviolate, when we suffer the cruel echct to take its way, 
with such allies as it can buy and yolve to its car, amid our 
stern and meaning silence. Let our citizen soldiery take to 
themselves salutary caution. If they are in haste at such 
crises, when the authority of our own State court, the pro- 
visions, of our own State laws, the mandates of our owai State 
magistrates, the rights of oiu- own metropolitan proprietorsliip 
— are nullified by the Federal power arrayed on the side of 
inh\imanity and unrighteousness, — if they are in haste to 
flash the sheen of their steel and the glitter of theii* uniform, 
before our eyes as the life-guards of oppression, to display 
their tactics and horsemansliip in our pubhc squares, as a 
terror not only to all free and generous sentimeiits, but to the 
administration of our own forms of justice, if they are to be 
associated with the pressm-e of the Federal Government upon 
us, overriding and overawing the course of law in the midst 
of us — rather than with the conservation of these sacred 
rights of their fellow citizens : they must not complain if 
they come to be looked upon henceforth, as the myrmidons 
of tyranny, rather than the defenders of Liberty. 

And if in taking thus our unalterable position, we hear 
again on every Southern wind, the alarm cry of " disunion " 



29 

— let the blast blow, till it spend itself. It has been a peri- 
odic gale, through the Hfetime of two generations. It has 
swept with it, as every wmd does, the light-lying surface 
dust, and withered leaves, and seemed to darken the hemi- 
sphere : but it has not prostrated the oaks or unseated the 
hills. Let the wind blow — after the storm cometh the calm. 
And if that idle terror become at last a dread reahty — if the 
price of the Union should still be the bleeding sacrifice of 
humanity, the fettered body of liberty — if there lie within 
this broader nationality no redemption for the dishonored 
name of oui- free Repubhcan Institutions, — if our sister States 
of the South choose rather to cut themselves clear from the 
strong bands of the confederacy, than to jTield their unholy 
demands upon us to fall down and worship then- great 
]\Ioloch, — if they think it practicable and easy to adjust for 
themselves a separate nationality, with a frontier line of States 
touching our free North, to shut themselves up trusting to 
such forces of law, police and arms as they can muster, with 
that magazine of destruction in the midst of them, — if they 
loill it so, EVEN so LET IT BE. This is n't the worst. The 
worst is to di-ag along with us forever into the world's 
brightening future, this body of death. If it \vill fall off 
from us instead of suffering bm-ial, let it go. 

But let not that word disunion as a threat or a hope, pass 
our lips. It belongs to a Southern vocabulary. For our- 
selves we will keep, if we can, our cherishing love for the 
whole country — for a confederacy of States, imited, happy, 
and free. Oh, we do not love our country less, that Ave are 
unwilling to perpetuate her shame ; or in her name to per- 
petuate the age of iron. We are none the less to-day large- 
hearted patriots, that we Avould burnish that blotted Hne, 
which spans our portals — " the great and free Republic " — 
so that the lai--off nations may read its shining capitals. We 
tm-n no parricide's blade against the breast of cherishing 
motherland, when we seek with the surgeon's kindly art, to 
cut out that deadly cancer that is eating into her life. We 



30 

are not sinning against the spirit and memories of this day, if, 
while celebrating that original Declaration of Independence, 
we frame another — entire national freedom, now and forever, 
from the despotism of Slavery, and pledge to it as the fathers 
did — " om- lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." 

VI. It was my hope to have found room for a final word, 
in reference to yet one more struggle, whose omens are 
beginning to thicken upon our late — and to meet Avhich we 
need to rally again witliin us, the spirit of the forefathers — 
their severe simplicity, their early Roman virtues. I mean 
the struggle of om" simple republican tastes and habits with 
the swelling tides of private and public extravagance. I see 
here, not merely in our growmg wealth, the development of 
our boundless resources of material riches — of productive 
industry and art — the gathering of broader harvests on the 
plains of husbandry, and the return of richer argosies from 
the ventures of commerce — but in the use we make of wealth, 
in its prodigal expenditure, in the pomp and show of private 
life, in the enervating sj)irit of luxury and effeminacy, 
stealing in upon us, with footfall as silent and as blighting 
as the plague ; a darker cloud low-lying on our country's 
horizon, with live lightnings sleeping in it, than even that 
whose colossal shadows are stretching from our southern sky 
past the zenith. This is a peril I cannot signalize to-day. 
And yet let us be warned. So ran the elder Republics their 
swift, downward race. So may we, if other perils spare us, 
sink from the very excess of prosperity into a splendid and 
gilded decay. 

It is manifest, then, that we are pressing forward toward 
eventful and final issues. "The times that tried men''s souls," 
are not merely historic, but present. The gravest questions 
of the entire problem of American Destiny wait their solu- 
tion, we believe, of the men of this generation. The ques- 
tion whether this great experiment shall fail — whether this 
star on whose trembling ray hangs the world's last hope for 



31 



personal, political ancj religious freedom, shall go cown- 
whether our career, so o^nened and so watched shall prove 
itself only a stride back into the darkness of kmgcraft and 
priestcraft-whether this banner, baptized m blood, unto 
man's liberty and God's truth by those who begat us, shaU 
lead the mad career of a conquest, stimulated by no ambi- 
tion-tlu-obbing to no lust of power, but shackled to the car 
of slavery, across the Mexican G.df and the Caribbean Sea, 
and over^he Isthmus and beyond the Equator-whether we 
have enough of patriotism, conscience and piety to enthrone 
above aU national legislation God's law, as highest and holi- 
est-whether we have moral heroism enough to fight the 
hydi-a-headed monster of oppression, and bimi the hfe out 
of its multiplying crests-whether we have enough of the 
stern old vhtue of the Puritan stock, ancestral m oui- 
linea-e-to hold oui-selves back and our country back, hom 
the luxury and profligacy of great and sudden nches-to 
these determinate questions let us stand up m solemn and 
prayerful earnest-trustees for our own and after-times, ot 
such measureless interests, and God pkospek the eight. 






III 



